I MUST confess that, as a human being, I have been putting my own interests on fluoridation of the water supply above that of other species.

I have not considered the effects on other life forms of dumping thousands of tons of rat poison, sorry sodium fluoride, into the water system.

Since only about two per cent of the domestic water supply is drunk, for every 100 tons of fluoride added to the water supply 98 tons would simply be flushed.

If the producers of sodium fluoride dumped tons of this substance in the water system or at sea they would, if caught, face a hefty fine. The cost of safety disposing of this highly toxic waste runs into hundreds of pounds.

Most children get their daily fluid intake out of cans, not out of the tap, so the whole exercise of fluoridation would be wasted in any case.

G SMITH, Bold Street, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.